Love's Worst Nightmare
by LoveandLearn
Summary: Just because he left her doesn't mean he wasn't in love with her. She is in danger and he's not around to save her. By the time he realizes what's going on it could be too late. And from there on everything becomes a nightmare that you can't wake up from.
1. Chapter 1

She hopelessly sat against a wall in a shack that she thought only existed in movies. She had been wearing the same thing she had on two days ago when she left the house. At this point she had given up all hope. There was nothing left. Nothing to look back on and nothing to look forward to. There was no way she would get out of this mess alive.

"Is there a point to any of this?" she finally asked. The words were the first words spoken since she'd last seen her husband or children.

"Of course there is." A man answered in a thick yet indistinguishable accent. "I know women like you.. Successful, well known, married with children. There is someone willing to get you back."

Addison chuckled. It was the punch of her life... her life was a joke and that was punchline. The sad truth was it was painfully funny. "I've been here for two day. You've had that TV on since I got here, no one has reported me missing. No one knows I'm gone. Nothing's changed." she pointed out. It was like an instinct, she knew that no one realized she was gone. And in a way, she deserved it.

Months ago, before Derek had taken the kids and left, she would be the same. If someone in her family was to go missing chances are she wouldn't notice because she'd never be at home or in contact to notice. It was like her payback. What goes around comes around.

"You're husband seems like a clever guy... based on what I've read. He'll realize you're gone sooner or later."

"My husband left me... three months ago and he took our kids with him. I haven't spoken to any of them since they left... I doubt they will notice I'm missing... considering I don't even know where there are. If your intention is to kill me... do it. Stop prolonging it hoping things will change, they're not going to."

"Forget the husband.. Don't you have a rich daddy?... I'm sure he'd wanna save his precious little girl."

"No one cares; if I die... no one will care. I've cared for every life in my hands, and when it's my life at stake no one gives a fuck."

"Are you trying to pity us out of killing you?"

"No, the opposite actually." she replied. "I'm not trying to win over your pity. Here's my offer. I'll give you the bank account number to my trust fund, there is 25 mill in there, the security code and written consent."

"You're paying your own ransom?"

"No, my condition is that you kill me then you go and take the money."

"You're paying me to kill you?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because I can't do it myself. And I've got all this money and I was never able to do anything that I wanted to do with it. This is what I want to do. Derek can have everything else, the houses, the businesses, the stocks, all of it. I don't care. I just need for my kids to know that I love them and that's it. I need someone to do to what I can't do to myself."

"You can't be serious. How old are you? 35.. 36. You've got a whole life ahead of you."

"No, I had a life a ahead of. I've got nothing now."

"We'll take 15 mill from the account and let you go. I followed you around for months! You're life seemed perfect. You expect us to believe any of that."

"It's a facade. Every smile, every laugh, it's an effort to get through another day. It's all been fake. I did it for my kids, because I thought they needed me. But I was wrong. They don't need me to the point that they don't even realize I'm gone. So at this point, I don't need to go on pretending."

"25 million dollars to kill you?"

"Torture me and kill me."

"Excuse me?"

"Torture me."

"Okay, now I know that there is no way that was a sane and logical request. Everything else you've said has made perfect sense. Usually people ask to be killed as painlessly as possible and you want to be tortured?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because I've been through so much over the last few years but it's never been actual physical pain. It's all emotional, mental, psychological. Non existent, essentially. So all the pain I felt in my head I want to feel on my body, physical brutal pain. Because nothing you could do to me would hurt as much as what I've already been hurt."

"I could twist a knife into your stomach and then pull it out and let you slowly bleed to death. Are you telling me you would want that?"

"My husband told me he's not sure if he loves me anymore. I've had a knife twisted it my stomach."

"Being hung upside down until the blood rushes to your head?"

"My daughter told me that she hates me. She said she wouldn't care if I died because my existence is pointless. She told me I'm a waste of space on this planet. Blood has already rushed to my head."

"What do you want me to tell you, lady? You want me to refuse 25 million dollars? You're asking me to kill you, you're offering me all that money. How am I suppose to refuse?"

"Don't. Don't refuse. The only thing I want is to be able to call my husband before hand... closure, ya know?"

"Okay... when do you wanna call him?"

"Now." she replied.. "And when I'm done... Do whatever the hell you wanna do. Torch me... skin me alive... I don't care."  
The look on the men's faces quickly turned disgusted. They nodded regardless handing the woman the phone and watched as she dialed the number without even looking at the numbers. They could hear it ringing and knew he wouldn't answer, Addison knew it too. She's called him enough times to know he wouldn't answer.

His voice mail went on and she patiently waited up the high pitched tone to indicate that she could record her message.  
"Hi..I'm not really sure why I even called but it's too late to turn back now. I'm not sure when you'll hear what happen but I assume you eventually will and I want to let you know ahead of time that I'm sorry. I wish it didn't have to end like this. I just want you to know that I love you despite everything... forever. And tell the kids that I love them too, please... You probably didn't even bother to listen to this, probably deleted after I said Hi... and yet I'm still talking. I just really needed to say bye..." by the end she was sobbing. The phone fell out of her hand and shattered.

"You ready?" someone asked her. By that point she didn't even bother to look up to see who was talking to her. She nodded, and felt someone grab her ankle and pull her down a flight of stairs.

* * *

Derek had taken his kids and left nearly three months ago. He was tired of the fact that Addison had lost track of her priorities. That she was more concerned with work than her family. Their children needed her to be there mother, not their provider. They'd only been to the 'Dr. Shepherd' side of their mother, the professional perfectionist. They'd never met Addison, their mother, the woman their father fell in love with. They had no idea what type of person she was. She had become to the type of parent she swore she wouldn't and when told she's dismiss it. Derek didn't want that for his kids, he wanted them to have a mother. He wanted them to know his mother. So he got fed up and he left. He went to Connecticut and was staying with his mother until he could think about what his plans were.

"Dr. Derek Shepherd?" someone asked the second he answered his cell phone.

"Yes."

"I'm calling on behalf of your wife."

"What is it? Divorce papers?"

"No, sir. They're not divorce papers. You no long need divorce papers. As of a few minutes ago, you are now legally a single man."

"Excuse me?" he asked in a little bit of a confusion.

"That's all I can say about Miss. Montgomery's condition. I'm sorry. She did leave you a very touching voice message before hand, sir. Had you cared to answer you may actually have spoken to her."

"She's not Miss. Montgomery. Mrs. Shepherd... Dr. Shepherd."

"Was." he corrected. "I thought you would want to know you're wife's where-abouts." he hung up.

What did that mean? He was now single...that doesn't even make sense. Miss. Montgomery? Addison hadn't been called that since before they got engaged almost 13 years ago. Was? That's the one that bothered him the most. What the hell was that suppose to me? You don't talk about people in the past tense unless they're dead.

"Oh..." he head dropped. It hit him. She was gone. "What the fuck happened to us?" he asked himself.

* * *

I know I still have Save Up All Your Tears to finish... but I couldn't help myself. This is mostly written, but not finished yet. It's not too long, I'm not sure how long it is but it won't reach double digits (unless I get really into it and go overboard which I doubt.)  
This is my first story in a while that's not centered around an Addison child. I'm not sure how well everything is presented in this chapter. So just a few thoughts to keep in mind during the story: The affair never happened and Derek and Mark are still best friends. The problems between Derek and Addison were present except it's the opposite as the show. Addison is the one who is a little to obsessed with her career.

Dying to know your thoughts.


	2. Chapter 2

He missed his last chance to talk to her. He didn't get to see her. The last thing he said to her was how much he resented her. He couldn't remember the sound of her voice at that second or the feeling of her touch. He could barely picture her face... remember her smile. All of it was gone.

He took his phone out and to check his messages. He usually deleted every single one she left him but he had to listen to this one. He had to hear and save it forever. He pressed the phone to his ear and heard her unstable broken voice through the speak. It all came back. Everything he thought had slipped his mind.

He could picture her leaving the message... the look on her face with every single word. He could remember the way his heart raced when she touch him, even an accident bump in the hallways of the hospital. He could remember the pride he felt when she smiled, the love that was invested in every word she had ever said to him. He remembered the feeling of his lips against hers and now that was all gone.

He listen to her message till the very end, even playing over and over again just to hear her voice. Because, he knew he would never hear it again. She knew... whatever happened to her, she knew. She had called to get closure and he didn't answer. He saw the call, he heard the call and so did their kids but none of them bothered to actually answer it.

Their kids... how was he suppose to tell his kids that their mother is dead? How can he not feel guilty for taking them away from her during the last months of her life. How was he suppose to explain to his 13 year old daughter that the reason Mommy hasn't come after them is because she was dead or dying.

He made his way to the room which she occuptied. "Audrey..." he stroked her hair to wake her up. She fluttered her mother's green eyes and sat up slowly rubbing away the sleep.

"What?" she asked groggily.

"I just got a call..." he paused, bracing himself for the words he wished he never had to say to anyone. "about your mother...." he added to buy himself time to digest everything for himself.

"I don't care." she fell back into bed. "I thought this was about something important."

"It is...very. That's why I woke you up." he stopped again. Was he crying? He was so numb that he couldn't even tell. "I'm really sorry to have to tell you this Aud, I don't think there is an easy way to say this..."

"You're making it sound as if she died or something."

"She did." he whispered. Her body jolted up instantly, brow shot up making her the epitome of her mother.

"What?" she asked. Now feeling the same numbness her felt. "No..."

"I'm sorry."

"No! You have to say it. I'm not believing it until you tell me. You have to say it."

Derek looked into her eyes, killing him every single second. It was as if he was looking at a younger Addison. There was virtually no difference, except she had his hair. "Your mother is dead." he said bluntly.

After hearing his words was when she let the tears building in her eyes actually fall. She fell back onto her pillow and turned her back to her father.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Leave." she stated simply. "Leave me alone."

He had no choice but to do as she asked. He couldn't say there to comfort her if she didn't want him to. And truth was he didn't want to himself, because just seeing the resemblance between them made him guilty. For 13 years he hadn't noticed it and tonight of all nights it had to hit him.

Now he had to worry about how he would explain it to his 4 year old son. Does a 4 year even understand the concept of death?

Derek sat numbly on the bed of the master bedroom in the suite. He reached for his wallet and opened it. Behind his driver's licence he kept a picture, a picture he never looked at, a picture he forgot existed. He took it out and stared at it. It was the day of their Med School Graduation. Addison was holding their baby in her arms, her graduation cap adorably place on Audrey's head. Derek had his arm around her waist, holding both their diplomas in his hand, their names clearly visible on the documents. Her head tilted toward his, his to hers their and temples touched slightly. The perfect picture.

But in a fit of fury he rip it up into tiny pieces, not sure if he was angry at himself for not being there for her or if he was angry at her for doing whatever caused this. What was he thinking? She's dead, you can't be mad at a dead person. It was his fault and that was it.

Pain, Guilt, Sorrow, Mourning. He didn't know what to feel.

He knew his marriage was dying the second he took his kids and walked bout but had he know that her death would be a result of it... he never would have gone. It was one pointless, stupid argument that got bigger and bigger. Before he knew it he back living with his mother and she was gone... forever.

He heard his daughter's door squeak open and herd her footsteps patting around. He heard her take his phone and dial numbers. There was silence which meant who ever she was calling wasn't answering.

Then she heard it, her mother's voice mail. "_Hi this is Addison Shepherd, Sorry I can't get to your call. Leave a message and I'll get back to you." _It was normal for her not to answer right? She could be at work or asleep. She never answered most of her children's call anyway. That doesn't mean anything or so she told herself.

"Mommy?" she said doubtfully, not having used that specific word in years. "I'm sorry about what I said before we left. And I'm sorry I haven't called and I'm sorry I never answer when you call. Daddy is trying to play a really retarded joke on me... and I need you to call me ASAP because you're the only one that can make this better. Please, Mommy... I'm begging. All I need is a call back or a text...a text would work too. Love you." she hung up.

Derek didn't say anything. He let her live in her moment of denial. It was a phase that everyone goes through. He heard her go back to bed and silent did the same.

The next morning he woke up and went to get his phone from his daughter's room. It was right beside her pillow, she expected to receive a call back but obviously she hasn't. He took the phone and quietly slipped out. He called the one person who cared for his family as much as he did, Mark.

"Derek?!" he exclaimed after the first ring. "Where the fuck are you dude? I've been calling you for months."

"I don't wanna talk about it. I need a favor."

"What's going on? You took the kids and left Addison?! What happen?"

"I don't want to talk about it." he repeated. "I need you to do me a favor... when was the last time you saw Addie?"

"That's what I wanted to tell you... she hasn't been coming to work lately. Hasn't called in or anything, she just hadn't been showing up. And I got a call from the police... cause I'm the second emergency contact and you didn't answer... they found her car in the water... in the Hamptons."

"Please tell me she wasn't in it, Mark...."

"She wasn't... at least they said there was no body."

"I have been ignoring all my calls... but last night I got this call..."

"What?" he replied. "What are you not telling me, Derek? What happen between you and Addison? Where is she?"

"We had a fight because she fell asleep in an on call room after an all night surgery."

"You fought with her because of that?"

"I fought with her when she told me she was going to do the surgery. I called her a bad mother. I said she was ignoring her kids... and when a nurse called me and told me not to expect her home I got furious and I took the kids and left. I've been too stubborn to talk to her since."

"That was a month ago! Do you know what she's been like? She doesn't talk to people, she doesn't leave the house for anything other than work... and not even that anymore."

Derek sighed, he didn't know how to tell Mark. Mark had been there the second Derek first saw her, the moment he asked her out, he was hiding in the bushes taking pictures during the proposal. He was at the wedding... tried to convince them to let him go on the honeymoon. He was there every day. The first person aside from them to see their children... "Addison's dead..."

"What?! No!"

"I think... she left me a message telling me to tell the kids she loves them and that she loves me. She said she wanted to say sorry in advanced for what was going to happen to her... and she said bye and it was over. Addison wasn't the type that could go through with suicide." he continued. They both knew her well enough to know that. "I.. can you go by the house.. break the kitchen window and get inside? She may just be drowning her sorrows in bed."

"Yeah, Derek.. I'll cancel this next surgery and I'll go right now." he promised. "Where are you?"

"We're at my mom's...After the kids get up I'll get them ready and we'll be on our way back."

"Okay..."

"If she's not there, Mark... call the police."

* * *

Nicholas woke up and carefully climbed out of bed. He made his way out of the bedroom to where he knew his father would be watching Tv. He climbed on the couch and

"Morning Nick." he placed a kiss over his son's head. He took his son onto his lap and ruffled his hair. "I wanna ask you something, okay?"

"Okay." he agreed.

Nick was just barely 4 years old. Derek wasn't sure exactly how far back he remembered. "Do you remember home?"

"Home?" Nick asked. "Here?"

"No, buddy not here. Home with Mommy. Remember that?"

The child looked blankly at him. He reached for his iphone and went on Google. He typed her name carefully in and click on a picture of her. It was from some hospital event that was posted on a fashion site. He showed the picture to his son who carefully examined the woman.

"Remember her?" he asked.

Nick held the phone in his tiny hands, staring at the picture. He knew the woman he was looking at, he was sure he had seen her. He didn't know where or why. He just knew he had seen her.

Addison had always tried to be there for her kids, everything possible. But even that wasn't enough for the toddler to remember her.

"She doctor?" he asked, trying to place her.

"Yeah., she is... was." he corrected.

"Me haved Boo-Boo?" he asked, although he didn't remember injuring himself.

"No, you didn't have a boo-boo." Derek answered in guilt. Her own son didn't know her because he had taken him away. "She's your Mommy. Remember your Mommy?"

Nick sadly looked up into his fathers eyes and shook his head slowly. "Sowy." he mumbled.

""It's okay, baby." He replied. "We're gonna go get you dressed and then we're leaving."

"Leaving?" he asked. "Where?"

"We're going back home." he answered. "Daddy misses Mommy a whole lot."

Nick cocked his brows, a trait that he too had apparently inherited from Addison . He was curious to know who this 'Mommy' was. He had heard the word hundreds of times, but he couldn't remember exactly who the vaguely familiar woman.

Derek got his son dressed and packed everything, checking out of the suite he'd called home for a month. They got straight in the car and begun the drive back to Manhattan. The entire time only thinking about his failure to his wife. The entire time, wishing he could hold just one more time.

As she pulled into the drive of his house he noticed Mark sitting on the steps outside the door. He got out of the car and took his sleeping son out of the booster seat. Audrey followed him toward the steps and silently stood behind him with her back pack slung over her shoulder.

"Have you been out here all this time, it's freezing out here."

"I couldn't...leave." Mark replied. "I did what you said. The cops just left a while ago. Nothing is in the house. They think someone could have taken her but if they did it wasn't from here. The detective said they probably crashed into her car, because it was damaged and I know for a fact that it was not previous damage. Anyway, he thinks when she pulled over and got out to see what happen they grabbed her and took her. Then destroyed the evidence in the car by pushing it into the lake."

"So where is she? Or at the very least...her body?"

"I have no idea." Mark answered. "I asked, they said if that situation is the case than chances are we are never seeing any trace of her every again."

"So that's it? I'm suppose to give up?" Derek asked.

"She's your wife. You'd give up this fast?" Mark replied in surprise.

* * *

How are you guys liking this so far? Happy ending or very very sad?

Please review!


	3. Chapter 3

Addison remained locked in the shack, no longer in the company of two strange men. Now she was in a room with five other woman. One of them dead, the rest, including her silently waiting to end in the same fate. Not one of them had said a single word to one another. The silence gave her a chance to be alone with her thoughts. Her every memory haunting her.

She was suppose to be dead already. They were suppose to have killed her... but what's the fun in that. They wanted the starvation, the thirst, the cold and the fear and anticipation.

Her focus was down on her hands, she was twisting her wedding rings around her finger absently while she thought about everything.

It had been days, she was suppose to be dead by now. But she wasn't. They locked her up so she could starve to dead over a period of months. When she requested torture she meant physical pain bearing torture not starvation.

To her knowledge her family still didn't know she was gone. No one had been there looking for her but then again she didn't even know where she was to expect someone to find her. She kept thinking about her kids, her son in particular. She knew for a fact that when she was to die, he wouldn't remember her. She knew that he hadn't seen her in such a long time that he might not recognize her. She knew that by the time Derek was to realize she was gone she was be dead and her son would never remember her. It's not like Derek would keep her memory alive.

When she thought about it, he was right. There is was some weird form of love between them but they weren't family anymore. Their marriage was just a piece of paper at that point, there was no actual passion or desire. They were no longer a family, just a man and a woman struggling to raise a family that was once the product of their love. He was right in excluding her from the Christmas dinner, if he went that is. She deserved to be alone on Christmas for forgetting her priorities through the year and putting her family on the back burner. Now that her family had done the same to her, she understood it.

The door creaked open and a strange man walked in, one she was sure hadn't been there before. He approached her, grabbed her left hand and yanked the rings off of her finger. Addison looked down at her bare finger, she felt naked without her rings. No matter what was going on between her and Derek she never took the rings off because no matter what...at the end of the day the only thing that kept her going was the fact that once... he did care for her enough to place the rings were they were. And now that little symbol of hope was gone too.

* * *

Audrey walked into her parents bedroom. She hadn't been in there for months. She looked around the perfectly clean room, walking into her mother's walk in closet, looking over the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of clothing and shoes. Her fingers ran over the diamonds lined on a jewelry display. She picked up one of the bottle of perfume in her mother's collection. The one she used frequently, it was Cartier and Audrey couldn't pronounce the name if her life depended on it. It was the signature sent that defined Addison.

She walked out of the closet and fell straight on the bed, right on her mother's side as predicted. The pillow still smelled like Addison's ridiculously overpriced shampoo. She clung tightly to the pillow, holding onto it for dear life. It was the only thing she had left, the closest thing to her mother.

Her father walked in, surprised to see her there.

"Get out." she warned before he had a chance to say anything.

"This is my room." he replied. Truth was, he was there to do the same thing she was. Except he was there to dwell. Pretend that she would still come home and scream at him for touching her stuff. And he knew that it would in turn caused the delayed tears. Something he didn't want his daughter to see. At that second the door bell rang and he rushed to answered it escape the awkward moment with his daughter.

"Captain..." he said shockingly. He wasn't expecting to see her parents, partly because he hadn't seen them in years.

"Derek." her mother, Bizzy greeted. "Where's your child?"

"Children." Derek corrected. "We.. Addison and I had a son four years ago."

"Oh... we hadn't heard. Congratulations...." they both answered at once. "What's his name?"

"Nicholas." he answered. "He's on the couch right there if you wanna see him. He might be asleep though. He always falls asleep while watching TV."

Her parents walked through the doorway into the living room and looked over the little boy on the couch watching Blue's Clues. He had his mother's eyes, it was the first thing his grandparents noticed. "Does he know?"

"No... he doesn't remember her."

"How could be not remember her? She is... was his mother."

"I left Addison three months ago, Right before Nick's birthday. And it was a mistake, only the problem is...I realize that now. He hasn't seen her for months and even when we were here, Addison spent most of her time with him while he was asleep. So he doesn't really sure who 'Mommy' is. But he knows that she's gone."

"You left her?"

"Yeah... I can't believe I did that! Addison and I have been together since the first year of college. I've never gone a week away from her... let alone months. And I got this call telling me this seperation is not just a month or two.. It's forever. My marriage is over. The woman I built my life with is gone and I'm alone. For the first time I walked into this house knowing my wife isn't going to scream at me for tracking in dirt...."

"That's what you miss?"

"No.. I miss it all. The way she bit her lower lip when she changed the channel on the TV. The sound of her voice when she would try to lie. The way it felt when she help my hand. The look in her eyes right before she fell asleep. The way her hair smelled after one of those two hour showers of hers."

"Where is your daughter?" the captain asked him.

"She's in our bedroom... hugging her mother's pillow and pretending it's her. She just talking to it... and crying."

"I should go talk to her..." Bizzy offered. Derek nodded, appreciating anything his in-laws could do to lighten the burden on his shoulder. He was grieving the loss of his wife, too but he had their children on his mind too.

"Thank you." he replied. "I really need to spend some time alone.... try to sleep. I'm gonna be in the guest house." he added, slowly leaving the house toward the guest house further on the property.

* * *

Bizzy entered the master bedroom of the house she and the Captain had bought for Addison as a wedding/graduation gift. It had been redecorated since, done completely in her daughter's taste. She saw Audrey lying on the bed, clutching a pillow as if her life depended on it.

"Hi, Audrey." she said softly, moving toward the child. "Hiding out?"

"Go away."

"I know your upset, Audrey. I know you miss her, I'm sure she was an excellent mother. I know you love her and that this is hard for you. I'm her mother, it's not as if I don't understand what it's like to know she's gone."

"She was a horrible mother. The worst." Audrey answered. "But that's cause she never really tried, she was always too busy with work. And on most days I really did hate her. But I didn't want her to die, I still need her. She's my mom...was. She wasn't suppose to leave me!"

"You can keep her memory alive." Bizzy suggested.

"Are you seriously going to give me that bullshit?"

"And it looks like you've inherited the mouth she had on her. Didn't know when to talk and when to hold it." she pointed out in a disciplinary tone.

"Besides, what memory? Ever since I could remember she's been at work... work, work, work."

"She did love you, Audrey. You shouldn't doubt that. You and your brother, I'm sure you meant the world to her."

"I never could have guessed. She barely ever spoke to us, barely saw us. She... I don't even know what to think about her. I have been so fricken mad at her lately, but now I just wanna see her and scream at her for putting me through this."

"She was like that because that's how we raised her, Audrey. She never saw what a good mother was suppose to be. We never had time for her, we never showed affection toward her. She thought that was normal. That's not her fault. But it doesn't mean we didn't love or care about and I'm sure she thought the same."

"Why are you here?" Audrey asked, sitting up in the bed and holding the pillow on her lap

"Addison was my daughter, Audrey. I have an obligation to be here."

"Obligation. That's what she was to you, obligation. Exactly. You're not here because you're daughter was just slaughtered. You're not here to support her kids or her husband. You're here because it's what's expected of you. Why bother coming all the way cross country if you don't care?"

"I do care!"

"Really? So were have you been for the past 5..6 years?"

The question caught Bizzy in a blind spot. She didn't know how to answer. In a way, Audrey had a point. "Audrey, you're upset right now, you're trying to invest that anger in someone other than your mother."

"My mother's dead! I can't be mad at a dead person. What's the point?!" she screamed. "So yeah, now I'm transferring that anger on you. That plus how much I resented you before. So now it's like you've got a double load. Besides, you're the next closest thing to her."

"Actually, you're the next closet thing to her." Bizzy answered. "Look, Audrey. You're mother was...she was passionate. She was driven. She knew what she wanted. The second she graduated middle school she knew she wanted to be a doctor. The second she met your father she wanted to marry him. And she was young, she didn't know what she was getting herself into when you were born. But she was determine to go through with the pregnancy and she did. She had you, she had your bother. She got what she wanted. This was her dream since she was little. She always wanted this."

"I hate her. I hate her so much. I hate her for everything she did, everything she didn't do. I hate her for dying and leaving me here. I hate her."

* * *

"How did it go?" the captain asked when he saw Bizzy coming down the stairs. She came toward him and sat down beside him.

"She is just as stubborn as Addison was at her age. But she's upset and hurt."

"She's a kid, Bizzy, and her mother is dead. You're expect stubbornness in a case like this."

"How's the son?"

"Nicholas." the Captain corrected. "He's a cute kid, looked more like Derek than...her." he found himself unable to say his daughter's name.

"Yeah, but the eyes. Exact same color." she said, tilting her head to the side to see the little boy playing on the ground facing them.

"He had no idea what's going on. He doesn't even know who she is. I found a few albums. There weren't too many picture of her but he didn't recognize her in anything."

"Audrey mentioned that Addison took after me in the maternal aspect." she cleared up. "She was barely around, plus he's been with Derek for three months now. Three months, hardly ever seeing her before that plus the fact that he's barely four. He doesn't remember much."

"She didn't deserve this. This family, this life was her dream. When she was a kid she'd always say she was gonna a doctor and she'd fall in love with price charming and they'd get married in med school Then they'd have babies, preferably one of each. And live happily every after. This is not happily ever after. This is her dream, the happily ever after part obviously didn't work too well."

"She was still a kid herself, she had time to make it work."

"A parent shouldn't have to live knowing that their daughter is dead." the Captain answered, obviously emotionally unstable despite the fact that he had never shared a strong bond with Addison. He always thought he had time to ment the relationship. But now he was numb, his little girl was gone and he never got a chance to be the father she deserved to have.

"And these children shouldn't have had to lose their mother before they even got to know her."

"Well...Bizzy, no one ever really knew Addison. No one understood her." he answered, taking a pause before saying. "Except Derek. He would know what she was thinking before she thought it."

"Yeah, well recently not even Derek can claim that to be his crowning glory. So she died without anyone knowing how she really lived."

* * *

This was pretty much a filler chapter but it was meant to describe everyone's emotional viewpoints on the matter. I'm hoping that I depicted that well enough but I'm not too sure.

To Be Continued...  
Review!...Please?


	4. Chapter 4

Derek woke up to a crying Nicholas nudging his arm to wake him. He sat up and rubbed his eyes tiredly, taking the little boy onto his lap. He automatically went about the task of soothing his son. He held him tightly against his chest and patted his back. "What's wrong, little guy?" he asked, placing a kiss over his head. It was almost a reflex to him buy now. He'd been the one to play care-taker to Nicholas while Addison was off chasing her career.

"I can't remember her, Daddy." he whined, obviously annoyed with himself. "I tried! I swear!"

"It's okay, Nicholas, you don't have to worry about that. Believe me, it's sparing you a lot of pain. If you did know her you'd be miserable right now." he answered. "I don't want you to be miserable. I need that adorable little smile on your face to help me get through this."

"But I wanna know her, it's not fair. Everyone else does. And everyone is talking about her and I don't understand anything they are saying. It's not fair!" Nick exclaimed with a pout and his arms crossed over his chest.

"Honey, I can't do anything to help you remember her. I've showed you pictures and you can't remember anything about her. What else do you want me to do, Nick?"

"Tell me a story about her." he begged, making himself more comfortable on his father's lap. "Pwez."

Derek sat silently for a second, trying to remember a story about Addison that would interest their son. And the only time he could vividly remember Addison and Nick together was during his infancy while Addison was on her maternity leave.

"I'm pretty sure you're not gonna remember this because you were tiny when this happened. You were really seriously tiny when you were born and I was afraid to touch you for like the first hour. Anyway, they cut your umbilical cord and cleaned you off and put you on Mommy's tummy and she was so happy she actually cried. And from that second on if anyone took you away from her you'd cry until you were back in her arms. She'd have to put you to sleep before she could do anything. When you were 5 or 6 days old you threw up on her shoulder and even managed to get some in her hair so she had to go shower. She left you with me for like half an hour and you didn't stop crying for a single second. Then she came back and she took you from me, put you against her chest and held you like that for a second and you stopped...just like that."

"Why?"

"Because she was your mother and she was the only person you trusted." he explained. "She cried when you were born."

"Why? Was she sad? Didn't she want me to be born?"

"Of course she did! Believe me, she wanted you out of there as soon as possible. She wasn't sad, the opposite actually. She was so happy she cried. You were the only thing missing to complete her little fantasy. The day you were born was the day she officially had it all."

"Will I ever get to meet her, Daddy?" Nicholas asked.

"You've met her, Nicholas, you just don't remember." he answered. "And I hate that it's all the time you had with her. She was the type of person you can be with for eternity and never get tired of her. Well, she was. Before her job took over her being. But either way... she lives on in you and your sister, okay? You guys are all I have left of her." his eyes began to tear and he couldn't blink away the tears like he normally would, despite his efforts. The blinking only made it worse, they made the tears run down his face. Nicholas reached out and wiped them away before wrapping his arms tightly around his father's neck.

"Do you think she liked me?"

"She loved you. It was love at first sight, I promise. She probably loved you more than she loved me."

"Then why did she disappear?" Nicholas asked sadly

* * *

Derek sat in conference room of the Manhattan Branch of the New York Police Department with Mark and the Captain with him for support. Two detectives sat across from them with the file of the case lying open on the table. The kids had no choice but to stay with Bizzy and neither party involved was thrilled about that, but it's what needed to be done.

"What we are saying is that we have no where else to take this case." Detective Brown rephrased what was previously stated in simpler terms. "There is no evidence, there are no leads. You don't know when she went missing, you don't know what she was wearing, you haven't spoken to her in months so you don't that she isn't just taking a getaway trip."

"If she was taking a 'getaway trip' what was her car doing submerged in water?" the Captain replied, obviously not willing to take any bull shit from anyone in regards to the matter at hand. He could see that Derek was numb, he wasn't registering anything that was being said to him. He wasn't even bothering to pay attention. He and Mark were there for this reason exactly, to bring him to speed about what was going on while he was lost in his own world with his own thoughts.

"That we don't know."

"You don't know?" Mark scoffed. "Okay, how about if you bring your wife in to the ER and one of us ends up treating her and we don't know what's wrong with her. So instead of doing what needs to be and finding out we say 'We don't know' and leave it at that. It's your job to know, if you don't know, you find out. It's what you do!" he yelled.

Derek obviously was at a loss for words. During the whole meeting he hadn't been able to say a single word. Mark and his father in law did most of the talking. He sat there and drowned away in his surroundings, thinking back to a time when he was happy and seemingly carefree. At this stage every memory haunted him, he would remember things randomly and register away from reality to live through his thoughts. Then he's snap out of his mindset and suffer the reality of his life.

_"What do we do now?" he asked, climbing into bed beside his wife who was holding their newborn son in her arm with a bottle in her hand. He moved closer to her and stared down at their son. He had his tiny hand wrapped around his mother's finger, gripping it will all the strength he had while he drank the contents of his bottle. _

_"You can go to sleep. I'm gonna burp him and put him down. " she answered. "I promise, Derek, I can manage to take care of an infant by myself." _

_"No, I mean..life wise. What next? Med school: check, marriage: check, daughter: check, son: check. That was your dream. Everything's done. What do we work toward next?"_

_"Actually, as I recall my dream involves a certain 'happily ever after.' We could work toward that."_

_"As long as you're by my side, we'll have happily ever after." Derek replied with a cocky smile. "I'm being corny today, go with me."_

_"Okay. So... I don't know. We start living through your dream. Although, you've never really told me what your dream is."_

_"My dream involves you being naked all the time." he answered. "If you don't mind working with that, neither do I." he smiled at her with a suggestive look on his face. She only glanced up from the baby in her arms at him with a small smile of amusement. _

_"Some dreams are a little better suited for the imagination." she answered. _

His trance was broken by the sound of his name being repeated.

"Dr. Shepherd, we need your signature to close the case."

"Close the case? Why, you found her? Is she here?" he asked, obviously not having paid attention for the paste hour and a half.

"Derek, she's not here. They don't know where she is and they don't even wanna try to find her. They want you to sign that so they can give up and go eat donuts." Mark explained resentfully. "But you wouldn't agree to that."

"Give up?" he asked, looking at the detectives in front of him. "What happens after if I was to sign that paper?"

"We haven't seen a body to issue a death warrant. By signing this we close the case and the coroner will issue you her death certificate. From that point on you're free to remarry or whatever you so choose. It also means that we can not revisit this case. It's closed, not one is putting anymore effort into this."

"So you're saying my wife is a hopeless cause?"

"No... sir, we're...we're saying that sometimes what you don't know, what you haven't seen is what's best."

"What if she's still alive, what if she being tortured and she needs someone to rescue her."

"Dr. Shepherd, you're not prince charming. You cannot rescue her even if that were the case. Things like that are not too common, it only happens in movies, keeping her to torture her...."

"I was her prince charming." Derek mumbled beneath his breath. "She told me so."

"You've got to consider signing this, sir. Put yourself and your family at ease, stop hoping and start grieving." they slid the papers across the table toward Derek. He picked them up and scanned through them. After a few seconds he picked up a pen and signed his name at the very bottom of the last page. He signed away his hope and her life in other sense.

"How could you give up on her like that?" Mark screamed after watching the scene in what he thought was slow motion.

"I need to get out of here, I need to leave." was the only thing Derek could reply. He got up and walked out of the room, Mark followed leaving the Captain to pick up the final copies of the documents.

He sat there a few minutes longer, waiting for the coroner to arrive. Then he sat there and watched a cold guiltless man sign his daughter's death certificate. It was too long ago he watched a doctor sign her birth certificate, legally pronouncing her existence as Addison Adrienne Forbes Montgomery. And now he watched them sign her life away, legally pronouncing her, Addison Adrienne Forbes Montgomery-Shepherd to be dead.

At that point the Captain was too numb to think about it any more. He grabbed the file roughly from the man that held it out to him and walked out briskly toward the car where Mark stood trying to confine Derek's hysteria.

* * *

I'll admit...I cry hysterically while working on this story. My mom walked into my room to see me sobbing in front of my computer screen and she crowned 'the queen of all mental unstable people.' -__-  
I think it's safe to say you're a little too into a story if it manages to make you hysterical.

Another random note: I deleted Upside Down, too. I'm on a deleting spree. I'm re-reading some of my stuff and all the crappy stuff is getting deleted. Teenage Ways might be next to go and I'm debating It Came Upon A Midnight Clear. I like the beginning of both but the end somehow ends up getting over exaggerated and dramatic. On the other hand, I do have a new Maddison story in the works...still have to work out all the details so it doesn't became shitty like the stories on my hit list. I only have one chapter down but I already managed to cry through it...so Im hoping thats a good sign. Stories that make my cry are usually the ones you guys like. Can't wait to work that out a little more and post it!

Anyway....Thoughts?


	5. Chapter 5

The three men walked into the house, Derek being the first. He didn't say anything to his children or his mother-in-law. He went straight up the stairs in the foyer with a desire to be left alone. Mark picked up his keys to go home, he had a date to get ready for. It may have sounded insensitive to date on a day such as that but he needed to get laid to make himself forget. It was the only way he could keep himself from breaking like Derek had. Addison had become a sister to him and it hurt him just as much as it hurt Derek.

The Captain threw the file of papers onto the marble kitchen island and went toward the bar to make himself to drink. Bizzy walked into the kitchen, curious about what had happened. No one said anything to her since they arrived. "What's up with all of you?" she asked, sliding the folder toward herself. "What are these?"

"A copy of the documents Derek signed authorizing to close the case and our daughter's..." he was cut off.

Bizzy pulled the sheet out of the file and laid it over the counter, letting her eyes scan over the words written on it and the signature. "What is this?" she asked again.

"That would be our daughter's death certificate." he answered. Bizzy nodded numbly, tucking the sheet back into the folder and leaving it where it was. "Derek gave them permission close the case, Bizzy. It's over. They issued the certificate because it's impossible to find her...or what's left of her."

"Since when did 'impossible' apply to Addison. There was no such thing as 'impossible' for her, she could make anything happen... and Derek allowed them to close the case?"

"They fought a very convincing case, I would have done the same. Mark was set against it, tried to stop Derek but... it's his decision. And besides, let's be honest. It's been a while, god knows how long she was gone before anyone realized it. Do you really think she's still alive? Isn't a mother suppose to have some sort of telepathic communication with her children?"

"You act like you've just met me." Bizzy replied. "I couldn't communicate with Addison while she was standing one foot away from me. I'm suppose to be able to now?"

"When they said money doesn't buy everything...they were right. We have more than we know what to do with, they have made more than they ever dreamed of and none of that could change anything right now. I wish I could...."

"Buy her back?" Bizzy chimed in. "She's a person, Captain. Not a dog. You can't buy people. You can't pay god or someone and get her life back."

"Yeah, I know." he answered, taking a sip of his vodka tonic. "I just wish there is something more we can do."

"We should have never let her drift away. We...should have stayed up her side even is we disapproved of her marriage, we should have supported her and been behind her back for everything. Things would never get to this point had we done that."

"You're right. If only we'd realized that then."

* * *

It had been a few days since Addison's parents left New York to return home to Connecticut. Although Derek had been the one taking care of his kids more often than not it was the first time he felt like a single parent. He didn't have anyone to rely on. Having to deal with that and dealing with her grief was getting the better of him. He hadn't even considered going back to work knowing what they had was enough to keep them going, maybe even enough to last their children through life too.

He would sit on the couch for hours and eat nonstop. That was his new career, professional TV watcher. He would spend all day and all night on the couch watching the same channel for hours just so he wouldn't have to move. He would drown his sorrows in bottled of scotch and didn't care if his liver wasted away.

Audrey stepped inside with something tucked away in her palm. She held it out for him and opened it to reveal to platinum bands. One was encrusted in diamonds and the other had a one large stone standing in the middle, slightly smaller ones on either side on the a setting which matched the other ring. Derek recognized them instantly. Not because it cost him more than his first car but because he recalled the sliding each one onto his wife's finger.

Audrey on the other hand had no idea who's they were or where they came from. She barely saw Addison, let alone the rings on her finger. "How much do you think it's worth?"

"More than you'll make on your first job in the first year." Derek replied.

"Who's do you think they are and why were they in our mail box?" she asked, sliding them onto her finger and letting the light shine onto them to reflect the sparkles on the wall.

"They're your mother's." he answered. "And I don't know why they're in the mailbox. I don't know how it could have gotten in there. But stop touching it, you're getting your finger prints all over it."

He held his palm out and she took off the rings and placed them in the center of his hand. He took them both and stared carefully at each one. Recalling the look on her face when he proposed and the way she smiled when he completed the set by sliding the second ring in place on their wedding day.

"You can't use it for evidence anymore, Dad. You closed the case, remember? It's over."

Derek slumped in his seat. "Right."

"Can I keep these, please?" she asked. "I know you said they're really expensive but I promise to take care of them. I won't lose them or anything." she begged.

"They're your mother's. And you don't even like her so why would you want them." he repeated. "She never...ever took these. Excluding while she was in surgery."

"She was in surgery all the time, that would mean she wasn't wearing it pretty much any of the time." Audrey replied. "Besides, you're wrong. I do...like her. I just...I don't wanna talk about it."

"I meant to say, no matter what was going on between us she wore them. She took them off only when she had to." Derek explained. "How much longer do you think we're gonna go on not talking about this with anyone else?"

"I don't know. But that's not the point. It's all I'd have, Dad. I don't have any recent pictures with her...or of her. The last picture she took with me was like... when I was like 7...maybe 8. I want something."

He looked back down at the rings and held them up to her. "I'm pretty sure its all any of us have left of her. Don't lost them."

"Daddy, do you think she was in pain?" Audrey asked out of the blue. "Because I think we've put her through enough and she didn't need anymore pain on top of that."

"I don't know, Audrey." her father answered.

"Do you think that she knows I didn't really mean it when I told her I hate her?"

Derek looked into his daughter's eyes without an answer. "Do you think she knows that I wasn't serious when I told her I didn't love her anymore?"

* * *

To say she had the slightest bit of hope or optimism left would be a lie. She'd in there for a month now and she didn't know what was going on around her. Every two days or so someone would force liquid down her throat. Every 5 or 6 days she'd be forced to eat something. Not enough to keep her functioning properly but enough to keep her alive to let her live the torture longer.

Addison was in a dark, windowless room, the walls painted a dark shade of brown maybe even black. She'd been to nutrition deprived to be able to tell the difference. She hadn't spoken since her call to Derek, she wasn't even sure if she remembered how. She was still in the same clothes and she was sure she was gonna get UTI, that the infection would spread to her kidneys and kill her much sooner than she would die in the hands of these men.

When she asked for torture she thought it was last a few hours, a day at most. Not span over a period of weeks, maybe even months. But that wasn't even her biggest concern. All day long she'd wonder if what her family was doing. If they'd noticed her absence. She was curious to know if there as any effort being put into finding her. She knew there was no hope, she knew we was somewhere so unthinkable so no one would find her. She knew that there was no way she'd be able to survive, she was fine with all that. But she could still dream right? She could still force herself to fall asleep and drift off into a dream where nothing was the way it was. She'd imagine herself as the perfect cooking, cleaning, narturing, caring wife and mother. She'd see herself wrapped in her husbands arms and she could almost feel his lips touch hers. But the second they came in contact, she'd wake up and there was reality staring right at her.

"You alive?" someone asked cruelly.

Addison pulled herself up into a sitting position. She looked up to see a man, covered in facial hair standing up a door which was usually bolted shut. This was defiantly someone new. "Unfortunately." she answered, her voice didn't sound the same anymore. It sounded like she was a little girl, lost and afraid.

"What would you prefer? Being shot and left to bleed or being stabbed and left to bleed?"

"Those are my only options?"

"We could drills holes in your body..." he suggested. "One straight through your belly button. That sounds interesting."

"I don't care." she answered. "I just want this to be over. Do whatever you wanna do, just end it already."

"Oh, Dr. Montgomery. You make it all sounds so much less fun than it is."

"Shepherd." she corrected. It was a reflex at this point. She was so used to saying it that even when she didn't mean to, it defensively came out.

"Whatever. It won't matter, it's not like you're gonna have a headstone for it to go on." was the answer she got. "You're body is gonna be cut into little tiny pieces are burned. Or fed to vicious animals. Who knows, depends on what mood we're in."

"I want my husband." she whispered.

"Aw, isn't that cute? Too bad he doesn't want you. Cause this could have turned out to be the ultimate love story. Prince charming comes to rescue his Cinderella from a horrible fate and he carries her out into the sunset and they live happily ever after. If he comes, we really would give him to you. Not harmed, not hurt. But, you know what? He's not coming. In fact, I have connections with the NYPD...I might even be working for them myself. That's what makes all of this so perfect, this is how I know know that no one is going to find you." he smiled a disgusting sly smile, handing a two sheets of paper to her. "The top one is the form your husband signed to close the case of your abduction. And the second one is your death certificate, it's customary to issue it when a victim has not been found and the case has been closed. So...he gave up."

Addison held the papers in her hand, tears ran down her eyes and landing on one of the sheets only to smear the ink. She thought she'd run out of her lifetime supply of tears but apparently, there was enough for one last cry. "I give up, too. Drill holes into me. Have fun." she answered.

* * *

I know this story is pretty unrealistic. But there are like a trillion movies like this so...I figure it's not as far fetched as some of the other things I've written. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on that matter.  
And just a heads up but the next chapter is the last chapter. Some people will hate how it ends, other will love it.

Reviews? You guys have to have something to say!


	6. Chapter 6

10 months later  
_____________

Addison was standing in front of the front door of the house she once called home. She hoped that Derek hadn't sold the house and that she wasn't about to try to break in into the home of some stranger. The lock and the front door was still the one Derek installed after losing his key. It was a fingerprint scanner and it allowed Addison into the house.

She didn't pay attention to much of anything, just went straight for the master bathroom adjoined to the master bedroom to shower. She felt filthy, partly because she was kept in a basement with dust and rust everywhere. She needed to shower and wash away as much as she could. She needed to get rid of the smell that haunted her, that was now stuck to her hair. And after almost and hour and a half of scrubbing it was done. She wrapped a towel around her body and went toward her closet. Everything was just as she'd left it, all her clothes still organized by color and alphabetically from there by designer.

"Nicholas, don't go in there!" she heard Derek yell from the from door. Seconds later she saw a little boy standing in the doorway of her closet. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her.

"It's you." he whispered, slowly stepping closer to her.

"Yeah." she answered, equally low. She knelt down as he came closer, falling into her arms. "You remember me?" she asked in shock.

Nick didn't answer in shame. He recognized her only because of all the pictures he had seen over the last year and a half. He didn't remember a single thing about her until he was in her arms. Then it made sense, it was automatic. He couldn't question her existence of her love for him. "I love you, Mommy." he whispered into her ear in the midst of his mother's tight embrace, an attempt to make up for all the times she wasn't able to hold him.

"I love you, too Nicholas. And I missed you."

"You're not going to disappear again, right?" he asked. "Cause I don't want you to go."

"Nick..." Derek called as he walked into his bedroom, walking toward the closet that Nick would tend to isolate himself in. "Who are you talking to?" he asked, opening the door wider to see his son wasn't alone. Instead he was safely tucked away in his mother's arms.

"Daddy, Mommy's back!" Nick wiggled out of his mother's arms, allowing her to rise to be at eye level with Derek.

"Addison." Derek whispered.

"Hi." she smiled. "I broke into your house."

"I'm sorry, I've had this dream one too many times to believe it now. And usually I'd come and kiss you at this point but that's the point I wake up and than this would all be over so I'm not kissing you this time. I'm just gonna stand here and stare at you and hope to not wake up anytime soon."

"Yeah. The kiss was right about the time I'd always wake up, too." she answered. "But maybe you should take our chances and try it one more time."

Derek nodded and stepped into the closet, walking closer to her and placing his hands on her hips. In a dream, it felt like it usually did before everything went so wrong in their marriage. This time he could feel her hip bone beneath his hands, obviously a result of the torture she'd edured. He brought his lips closer to hers and kissed her softly. Pulling away, surprised to see her still there.

"Okay, so maybe this time the dream doesn't end at the kiss." Derek mumbled.

"Or maybe this isn't a dream and I'm really standing here in your arms." she answered with a small smile. Nick looked at them as if he'd just seen Santa Claus kissing the tooth fairy, his eyes filled with a magical spark they'd lacked for much too long.

"Are you okay?" he asked, pulling away from her slightly to look at her frail figure.

"Yeah. I'm fine. I just lost a little weight.."

"A lot of weight." he corrected. "You didn't even weigh enough before to lost this much weight." he added, realized the comment made more sense in his head.

"Derek, I wasn't fed regularly, okay? Weight loss was kinda expected. Hell, death was kinda expected."

"Shouldn't we go to a hospital and get you started on a course of saline and glucose?"

"Honey, I know you're worried, okay?" she answered. "But I don't want to go to a hospital right now. I'll do whatever you want, just not right now. I just want to relax with my family right now."

"Okay." Derek agree. "But promise me that if you aren't feeling well until we go tomorrow...you'll tell me."

"I'll be fine, Derek." she promised.

"I was gonna put him to bed, I'd love company if you're willing to provide it. If you're lucky I might even let you read him a bedtime story."

"How about I do it myself?" she answered. "I am his mother and I know I haven't been here recently...or ever for that matter but I wanna try to make this work. The fact that I'm alive is a miracle and I'm not planning to make the same mistakes with my life twice."

"You can do anything you want. Better for me, I'll go downstairs and watch TV until my ass goes numb and I fall asleep on the couch...I've been doing a lot of that."

"Or maybe you could think of something for me to eat because I'm famished."

"I could order pizza, Chinese.... or if you want me to I'll go out and get something. Italian, french...burgers?"

"No. I shouldn't be eating that much this soon, it would send my body into overdrive after not being fed for days at a time. There are kids in this house, you need to have a cookie somewhere."

"A cookie. You're 'famished' and a cookie is gonna do the trick?"

"A cookie is more than I've been getting so... yeah."

"Chocolate chip?" Derek asked. Addison smiled at thought that he remembered her what she like. A nod followed with a plea in her eyes. "I'll make them for you...from scratch right now."

"You bake now?" she asked with a slight chuckle. If there was one thing that she never imagined Derek doing it was baking.

"Let's just say it's easier to mourn with cookies stuffed in your mouth." he answered, not wanting to go into further details. He walked over to her jewelry display and retrieved two rings.

"Where did you get those?" Addison asked, although he went without answering. He stepped closer to her until there were inches apart.

"Audrey wouldn't take them off for about a month. She would wear it and stare at it. I don't know what joy she got from that but she did it. And I had to steal it back from her while she was sleeping because I secretly wanted to spend all day staring at them too... Every time I see them I remember that look on your face when I proposed and as I slid the ring on your finger at the wedding. So... I couldn't get rid of them. It was all we had left of you."

"Mommy..." Nicholas began as he tugged on her arm. She looked down at him and gave her her full attention. "You're suppose to put me to bed, remember?" he asked.

"I remember, buddy. Just give me a second with Daddy, okay?" she replied, bending over to place a kiss over his hair. She turned back to Derek and smiled."Put them on me again. Except this time, don't look at my face because I doubt I look anywhere near as good as I did the first time you did this."

"You look beautiful." Derek promised, sliding the wedding band back on her finger first before following slowly with her engagement ring. He brought her hand closer to his heart and leaned in slightly to place a kiss on her lips.

Nicholas covered her eyes and faked a gagging sound before he pulled his mother away from his father. "Ew. Grandma says you're not suppose to kiss girls!" he exclaimed and began pulling Addison out of her bedroom toward his own. Derek followed and stood in the doorway while Nick searched for the pair of pjs he wanted to wear that night.

"The prince always kisses the princess at the end of a fairytale." he fought back.

"You're a neurosurgeon!" Nick argued, his hands on his hips. "And I don't know that you are but I know you're not a princess cause you don't have a tiara."

"She keeps her taira in storage." Derek replied.

"Go away!" Nicholas whined and ran toward him to push him out of the room with all his strength. He slammed the door in his father's face and turned back to his mother. "You're reading to me." he told her.

"Am I?"

"Mhmm. And not about some stupid princess." he answered, pulling Harry Potter out of his toy chest. "Ready?"

She laughed and sat on the bed, pulling him onto her lap. "I'm ready." she answered while he opened the book to the first page. The whole time she was reading he stared at her, mesmerized by her presence. He let her voice numb him to sleep in her lap and knew he'd wake up the next day with a mother to care for him.

Two hours had passed when Addison went downstairs to see Derek on the couch, a plate of mostly consumed cookies on the table in front of him.

"Is he always this hyper before bed?" she asked, taking a seat next to him and reaching for one of three cookies left.

"Nope, unusually goes down without a fight but he's excited to see you." Derek answered, leaning it to place a peck on her lips while she chew a small piece of cookie. "And so am I."

Addison swallowed and smiled. "Correct me if I'm wrong but I recall having another child."

"I seem to recall something of the sort too." he answered. "She was suppose to be home by 10, I'm not sure where she is. She's hard to keep track of, she has been very...isolated during this. She's fine during the day but at night she doesn't wanna come home. I have no idea where she goes or what she does but...I can't ask because it's been her release. Like drinking was mine."

"It's almost 12." Addison pointed out. Despite the fact that she hadn't actually her daughter in a months she still felt the concern that any mother would feel. "And I know I'm the last person in this house with a right to act like disciplinarian. But I don't want her out past nine, she's 14. She can't be in unknown locations doing unknown things."

"Your right. And we're waiting up for her to tell her that. Well I am and I'm inviting you to keep me company. We'll totally be like those parents in movies who turn on the light the second the kid closes the door.... it'll be awesome. I've always wanted to do that." he rambled.

"You may have had one too many of these." she laughed, grabbing another cookie for herself as she followed him into the foyer. He took a seat on stairs and motioned for Addison to sit beside him. They turned off the lights and sat there in the darkness. After a few minutes Addison dropped her head on Derek's shoulder. "I missed you."

"So did I. Like you'd never believe." he assured, placing a kiss over her damp her. "I really did assume the worst every day, but expected to come home and see you here."

"I was just hoping to wake up and have it all be over."

"Did they hurt you, Addison? Did something happen...something I should know about?"

"No." she answered. "I wouldn't say I was fine but...they didn't physically hurt me. They were suppose to tortured me to death but gave up on killing me. They brought in a few other woman and they'd stab these woman, rape them and beat them and I was there to make sure these woman didn't die so they could continue torturing them. So they'd keep me locked up, brought me out when I needed to take care of someone and then lock me up again."

"So you were never stabbed, raped or beaten yourself?"

"No, I promise you I wasn't. It was mental torture. And I was dragged around once or twice, a slap here and there but that's it." she paused and looked at him with nothing more than a genuine look of love and longing on her face. "I'm sorry, Derek. I sorry for everything I've done. I'm sorry for not being able to get out of there sooner. '

"I'm sorry that I gave up on finding you so easily." he replied. "I should have known that no one can get rid of you that easily. You'd never go down without a fight and I shouldn't have either. You fought with everything you had to survive and I just...gave up."

"I'm sorry I ignored you for and the kids for all that time. You were right for doing what you did."

"No, I wasn't. But what...what happen to you, Addison? You were thrilled with everything, then suddenly your job took over and it was like we didn't even exist."

"I wanted the best for them. I wanted the fairytale. I thought I'd be able to balance it out. But I couldn't, I wanted to be the best surgeon, I wanted to be the best mother. But I lost control of my priorities. I'm sorry. It just...I thought I was being a better mother by working. I don't know why that made sense at the time, but I've had a lot of time to think about that since and I don't evern understand what I was thinking."

"Whatever, Addison. That's behind us. You're here now, your want to make this work. That's all that matters." he answered. "I know you probably dont want to talk about this right now. But I have to ask. How did you end up getting out of there? How did you get home?"

"There was this girl there with her. She wasn't too much older than Audrey, she was like 15 or something, I'm not too sure. She died, after the raped her they stabbed her. And then they brought me in to 'fix it' as they would say. And I couldn't, I needed an OR, I needed more than a needle and black sewing thread. I couldn't stop the bleeding. She was bleeding vaginalyl because they literally tore her apart and she was bleeding from the stab wound. She bled to death on her first night there. And her body stayed there in a pool of her own blood for two weeks. But her father worked for the FBI, he found out where she was and came to find her...alone. No backup. Armed of course. I was the only one 'victim' still alive, so I dont know why but he shot every single one of them and he brought me home."

"I guess I owe that man a lot for saving the woman who gives my life purpose."

"Which brings me to this...his wife ironically has a tumor...in her temporal lobe. He's already lost his daughter, he shouldn't lose his wife too. I told him that if you were to take me back than you'd more than likely be willing to help them. Pro-bono preferably?"

"He saves my wife, I save his? Seems fair. We'll make arrangements for it from the hospital tomorrow...ya know, cause I'm sure we'll having nothing better to do while you're have nutrition pumped back into you." he reminded casually. He paused, hearing a noise from outside and turned to her. "We'll finish this discussion later, k? I hear her and I want this to go smoothly." he whispered, putting his arm around her and pulling her in closer to himself. He softly placed a kiss and her cheek as she watched the door in an anxious desire to see her daughter.

Like expected the door opened and Audrey tip toed forward and shut the door. She reached to turn on a dim light and saw her parents sitting on the stair case. At first she rubbed her eyes and laughed. "God, I'm high." she mumbled.

"Are you?" Addison asked. "Because I'd see that as a problem."

"She's talking to me..." Audrey thought aloud. "High and drunk. Very high and Very drunk." She tried to walk past two people she'd hoped where only there in her mind when she felt the woman grab her arm and restrain her from walking any further. "Okay...so now she's touching me. High, drink and insane. Very very insane."

"I think Audrey needs to be grounded, Addison. Wouldn't you agree?" Derek asked, holding onto his wife's hand tightly, still afraid that she would disappear.

"Defiantly." she answered.

"This is all happening in my head, right?" she asked both of her parents. "Because I can't be high or drunk, not tonight at least. Insane is a possibly but high and drunk... unless I ate or drank something accidentally it's impossible...and now I'm rambling to two imaginary people."

"Nope, not happening in your head. We are indubitably real, actually sitting here and very serious about grounding you." Derek answered.

"But you're suppose to be dead." she looked over at her mother. "I'm sorry, that was mean."

Audrey took a seat a step beneath her mother, crashing down into her arms like she'd been dreaming of for over a year. "I'm glad you're okay. I really missed you." she whispered. "And I didn't mean it when I told you I hated you. I actually...um love you, I guess."

"I missed you too, Audrey. And I'm grateful for the apology." Addison answered. "Oh, and just for the record I love you too but your still grounded."

"Okay." she replied without a fight, still not ready to move out of her mothers arms. "I've been picturing this moment for a while, I have so much to tell you but I don't remember a single thing right now." she began silently crying, unsure if it was tears of sadness or joy. The only reason that Addison noticed was because she felt the tears seeping through her sweater.

"It's okay." Addison reassured, trying to comfort her by running her hand along her daughter's back. "I'll be here when you remember."

"You won't be too busy?"

"No, I'll never be too busy for you." she promised. "I'm your mother and from now on that's my biggest priority. I'll be there whenever you need me."

Audrey heaved for air and wiped away her tears. She chuckled softly realized how ridicules she must appear for crying for no apparent reason. "Are you sure this isn't a dream?"

"This was defiantly not a dream." Addison assured.

"It was more like a nightmare." Derek answered. "A nightmare that wouldn't end. But it's over. And everything will be better from now on."

"You guys promise?"

"We promise." they both answered in unison.

* * *

I was gonna wait another day or two to post this...but I couldn't. I was a little too eager. I've been dying to know what you guys would think about the ending since I first wrote it! So please satisfy that burning desire with a **review.**


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